Out of the Box
(and into the pew racks)
by Mary Ella Wielgos
As I prayed on a day back in January, an idea came to mind how important it is for us as disciples to know God’s Word, to pray with it, to study and honor it. I couldn’t shake an idea to make Bibles easily available at St. Max, in the church, for anyone to pray with at anytime. The Word of God is so priceless, that just having a few copies on a back shelf didn’t seem to be enough. So I decided to pursue placing Bibles in each pew rack in the church. This way, wherever and whenever someone sits down, the Word of God is right there in front them, just waiting to be read. I got excited thinking that if we were able to do this, the number of people who would potentially have an encounter with Christ the Living Word, who otherwise might not, could be endless.
After many conversations, much research and prayer, the St. Ignatius Revised Standard Version, Second Catholic Edition Bible was chosen. The next step was how to pay for the nearly 900 Bibles that we would need to fill the church. This was the toughest hurdle for which I struggled to see a solution. God had only given me the idea, not the step by step plan on how to make this happen. In my mind, I saw an insurmountable hurdle ahead of me and the finish line was beyond reach.
Eventually, through faith, we took the next step. A downpayment was made to secure the order, and at the same time, was told they would be shipped much sooner than expected. This worried me because we hadn’t yet started fundraising and I couldn’t guarantee we’d have the money to pay for them by the time they arrived. Then God moved.
In a completely unbelievable, unimaginable way, a gentleman, who is not even Catholic or a parishioner, stopped by the office the day after we placed the order asking how he could help financially support the parish, as his wife, a devout Catholic, was recently deceased. He had just started coming to Inquiry (OCIA initial sessions) and began to feel a connection to our parish family. In honor of his late wife, he wanted to donate towards a specific need of the parish. After sharing with him our desire to place bibles in the church, he wrote a check right there and then to completely cover the cost.
Only God can make these moments happen. Only God can move outside of the box we place Him in when we cannot see a way out. I hope as parishioners, when you pick up one of these bibles, you will take a moment to pray for Darryl Alexander and his late wife, Nancy, and thank our Loving God for moving in his heart in such a profound way to make this idea come to life.
To learn more about praying with scripture, visit www.saint-max.org/lectio.